A new venture firm in NoVA has raised $20M for its first fund

A local venture capital firm called Lavrock Ventures has raised more than $20 million for its first fund and is planning to raise $30 million more, reports the Washington Business Journal. An SEC filing filed in early September reports that the firm aimed to raise $50 million.
According to the company’s LinkedIn, the venture firm, based in McLean, Va., was founded last year and will mainly focus on “post-seed and Series investments” for startups in cybersecurity, govtech and enterprise (or B2B) software.
Last year, the firm participated in an $11 million Series A for local telemedicine startup Avizia, according to Yahoo News.
Avizia was founded in 2013 and developed a video platform that can be used to conduct consultations and follow-ups with patients. Yahoo News reported that the plan for the Series A funds Lavrock helped raised was to expand into more hospitals, as well as begin including patients’ families in certain conversations.
We reached out to Lavrock but have yet to hear back.
Lavrock’s sparse website lists three partners: James “Jim” Hunt, Stephen Smoot and Daniel Hanks.
The managing partner is Hunt, a founding member of Vienna, Va.-based Blu Venture Investors and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Smoot is one of Lavrock’s general partners. He was the former vice president of Blu Venture Investors and later helped found another venture firm in D.C., NextGen Venture Partners.
Hanks is also a general partner at Lavrock, coming to the firm with a background in investments as well as startups, including working as the CEO of D.C.-based tech company SnapDash, where he developed a mobile photo app.
The logo for the venture capitalist firm is the black silhouette of a bird. Lavrock is an alternative spelling for “laverock,” a British songbird also known as a lark. Poet Isabella Valancy Crawford famously wrote, “A bee may buz among the heath—a lavrock cleave the skies.”

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